When a company creates a successful product you can bet that unscrupulous rivals will try to replicate the concept with cheap clones in the hope that a few easy sales can be chalked up from unsuspecting consumers. We saw it happen with the NES Mini, and it's just happened with the Nintendo Switch.

Say hello to the 'Nanica Smitch' – a knock-off Switch clone which comes pre-loaded with a whopping 800 games – and, as you might expect, they're ROMs which the company behind this product doesn't have the right to use.

The legality of the software isn't the only headache here; while the Smitch does have detachable, Joy-Con-style controllers, it's much thicker than the Switch and the pads lack any kind of motion control. While it's hard to tell categorically, the screen looks quite substandard, too. There's no dock, either – instead, TV play is achieved by connecting the console directly to your display via a cable. You can see the console in action below.

Now, any gamer in the know will spot this fake a mile off, but it's easy to see how parents and grandparents could be fooled quite easily; the Smitch packaging looks very similar to the Switch's, and the basic design of the console is very, very close.

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Let's hope there won't be too many kids finding this under the Christmas tree in a few day's time.

[source gonintendo.com]